Operational Difficulties
by northernexposure
Summary: A situation off-world puts O'Neill and Carter in an uncomfortable position. Set season one, non-episode related, although probably set after the events of 'There But For the Grace of God'. If I could add a third category to the 'genre' menu, I'd probably say very slight humour. Possibly.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Very short opening to something that is probably only going to meander a little bit, and not very far. Just a chance for me to play with these voices for a while. Hope someone out there might have a bit of fun reading it as I do. Tiny bit of colourful language but other than that not planning on anything more than K-rated UST.

* * *

There were plenty of things, Jack O'Neill reflected rather sourly, that no amount of military training or combat experience could train one for. He'd thought that over the years he'd pretty much dealt with whatever being in the field could send his way, and yet… nope. Right now, right here, this was something new. Something new and _extremely_ unwelcome.

Jack huffed a sigh. His exhale of frustration ruffled the blonde hair currently just a couple of inches from his nose.

"Sorry, sir," Carter said. Her mouth was close enough to his neck for her breath to coast warmly over his already-warm-enough-damn-it-thank-you skin.

"Not your fault, Captain," he muttered, staring over her head at the rough wooden door of the cabin in which they'd been locked. Where the hell was the rest of SG-1? Danny could talk the hind leg off a donkey, surely he'd smoothed this all over by now?

"We've been saying it for a while now – the MALP is too limited for initial survey purposes," Carter went on, in a tone that suggested they were sitting in the briefing room instead of where they actually were. "It can only show us what's immediately in the vicinity of the gate. I'm trying to persuade the Pentagon that investing in a UAV that can cover more ground and give us a more accurate understanding of both terrain and local populations, but – well. The wheels of bureaucracy turn very slowly, especially when there's huge expense involved."

"Uh huh." Jack's back was stiff. His shoulders and arms were beginning to ache from the effort of holding them in a more appropriate way than their forced stance would suggest was natural. They'd already been here for north of 45 minutes.

"But I should have put more effort into finding a way to use the MALP more effectively, precisely to prevent situations like this," Carter said. "Perhaps there's a way to augment the MALP with increased sensors, or-"

"Carter," Jack interrupted. "How about we just concentrate on getting ourselves out of this situation before we start theorising about future ones, huh?"

She shifted slightly, gaze moving directly to his. Jack tried to pull back – they really were very close – but their respective positions made that impossible.

"You want to attempt an escape, sir?"

"That's generally a good idea when one's been captured by the enemy, wouldn't you say?"

"But I thought we were going to leave this to Daniel and Teal'c? I'm not so sure that the Codai are an enemy, sir – they're just cautious. You can't really blame them, given their history with the Goa'uld."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "They've trussed us together like a couple of hogs, Carter, I wouldn't exactly call that friendly."

"Uh – no, sir, but-"

"And anything could be happening to the rest of SG-1 right now. I mean, they've been gone for almost an hour."

"Actually, Colonel, by my calculation it's been about 20 minutes. It just feels longer, given our relative positions."

"Relative positions," Jack repeated. "Yeah, about those. How about we at least try to get out of them? My shoulders are about ready to pop out of their sockets."

Carter shifted against him. "You could try relaxing, sir. I won't… hold it against you."

He shot her a sideways glance. "Was that a _pun_? _Now_? Was that a little Carter humour, right there?"

She looked down, so that he just caught her little grin. "Just trying to diffuse the tension, sir."

"Tense? Who's tense?"

Carter looked up again, still smiling. "Honestly, sir. It's fine. You don't have to worry. You've been trying not to touch me since we were put in here, and it's just not possible. We're in an operational situation and our reports will reflect that. Nothing untoward is happening. Just relax."

Despite everything, he couldn't stop his eyebrow quirking at that one. "Nothing _untoward_?"

She blushed. Right there, right then, with her wrists tied together behind his back and his tied behind hers, hard-as-nails-and-way-way-WAY-smarter-than-him Captain Samantha Carter of the USAF actually blushed at one of his quips.

 _Shit._

Suddenly getting out of their current predicament as quickly as humanly possible seemed like the best idea he'd had in years.

[TBC]


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Yeah, this is total absurdity but whatever, at least I'm getting my word count muscle working again.

* * *

Sam realised with horror that her cheeks were flushing red. She dropped her head, hoping the Colonel couldn't see the heat working its way up her neck and across her face, but she already knew it was too late. What was happening to her? She never blushed, certainly not over a harmless comment from a superior officer. Oh God, what was he going to _think_?

Colonel O'Neill was standing straight as a ramrod with his arms held out stiffly as he could. He was evidently desperate to maintain as little contact with her as possible, despite the fact that just wasn't an option. He was clearly deeply uncomfortable with the situation, for which Sam blamed that whole mess they'd brought back from the Land of Light a few months ago. After all, the last time they'd been quite this close – face to face and without a battle going on around them, anyway – she'd been trying to ram her tongue down his throat.

The brief flash of fevered memory didn't help with the burning sensation in her cheeks. What she wouldn't give for a brain wipe of _that_ little episode. At the time she'd been grateful for his nonchalance over the whole incident, his apparent willingness to put it behind them, even though it was clear he'd been economical with the truth when he'd declared he couldn't remember a thing. For weeks Sam had expected to hear rumours ricocheting around the locker room and mess hall, to hear whispers echoing the corridors in her wake, but there had been nothing. O'Neill evidently hadn't talked about it beyond his official report, for which she was both grateful and relieved. In her experience it didn't take much for a woman in this world to become a locker-room joke. Sam had taken this to mean that she'd earned his respect and loyalty, which meant more to her than she could possibly have expressed even had she been inclined to try. Now here she was blushing in his arms and she'd be damned if she'd unpick the good that months of serving beside him in the field had knitted between them.

She shifted her hips, but there was no getting away from him. The Codai had pulled one of her arms over his shoulder and the other directly around O'Neill's waist before roping her wrists together. They'd done the same with the Colonel to her. Once they'd been left alone they had managed to manoeuvre so that the arms that had been over shoulders were now slid lower, which put about an inch more space between their bodies, but the two of them were looped together like the two links of a chain. No amount of wriggling was going to free them and in fact, the knots the Codai had used seemed to tighten with each attempt.

Sam took a deep breath, willing the flush to recede. O'Neill was right, even if they willingly stayed in this cabin until the rest of SG-1 returned, they could at least try to free themselves from this particular predicament. Concentrating on a problem was always the best way to settle her mind.

Sam lifted her head. She felt the Colonel studying her face with a slight frown as she glanced him over, leaning back as far as she could to take him in head to toe.

"What?" he asked.

"There must be something on us we can use to get out of this mess, sir."

"Such as? They took your Bowie at the same time they took mine, right, along with everything else useful? Unless you've got a little something special hidden somewhere even _I_ don't know about."

"No sir, but…" her gaze flicked over the little flash of silver at his neck, then went back again. "Tags!"

"Sorry?"

"We've both still got our dog tags, Colonel."

He glanced down at his chest but they were hidden beneath his black shirt. "So? You going to tell me you've had one side of yours sharpened to a knife blade just in case of a situation like this? Because unless you have I can't see what good they're going to do and _if_ you have, consider yourself already in possession of a medal, Captain."

Sam stared at him. "That's actually not a bad idea."

"Yeah, I do have them occasionally. In fact I do believe that's why they made me a Colonel."

"It'd be perfectly safe under the rubber edges and would definitely be useful in an operational difficulty such as this."

"Yes, it would. However, I'm getting the distinct impression that you're about to tell me this isn't a piece of very useful equipment you have on you right now."

"'Fraid not."

"Then what use is a dog tag going to be?"

"Well, sir, I think we've been tied with a variation on a constrictor knot."

"Meaning the more we pull, the tighter it gets."

"Right. If we can slip a dog tag between the point where the ropes cross, it'll create an interruption in the direction of the exerted force that should allow us to loosen and ultimately undo the fastening."

There was a pause. Sam was taken a little by surprise by the little spark of warmth in O'Neill's eyes as he said, "Carter, is there anything in which you're _not_ an expert?"

She blinked. "Well, eyeliner's always been a bit of a mystery to me, sir."

He grinned, and for the second time in less than an hour Sam Carter felt utter horror as something low down in her belly flipped over on itself and made her heart stutter.

 _Oh no. No, no, no, no. That definitely did not happen. Definitely, absolutely no way that happened. No._

"All right," he said, oblivious. "It's worth a try. Problem is, Carter, that we can't use our hands and our dog tags are round our necks. Any ideas how we rectify that little problem?"

"Well," she said, "I think if I can move your tags over your shoulder and then hook the chain over your head, I should be able to drop it into my hands and go from there."

O'Neill raised his eyebrows. "Sounds like a real piece of cake."

"I figure we've got two attempts, Colonel. If I can't do it, you might be able to get a hold of mine."

"I'm still stuck on the 'doing this without hands' thing, Carter."

 _Oh._

 _Shit._

Sam looked him straight in the eye and refused to let herself think about it as she said, "It's going to have to be a teeth only operation, sir."

O'Neill flicked his gaze to her lips and then back up to her eyes, and suddenly the look in his own was as blank and steely as she'd ever seen from him. "Okay, Captain," he said, "then let's get this done, shall we?"

"Yes, sir."

There was a moment of stillness. Sam swallowed, bracing herself, and then pressed closer, reaching for the silver chain at his neck. She raised herself up a little on tiptoe so that she'd miss the edge of his T-shirt and found herself sandwiched against him and oh _crap_ , this was a terrible, terrible idea. Sam tried to catch the silver links between her teeth and there was no way to prevent her nose pressing against his neck or her parted lips smoothing across his skin. The first time she connected Sam had to stop herself jerking back, the warmth of him was so intimate it felt almost explicit. She forced herself to concentrate - _he's counting on you, damn it, just get the job done_ – and tried again, doing her best not to notice the trace of scent left by the soap he'd used that morning or the tiniest scratch of stubble growth against her bottom lip.

She succeeded in trapping the chain between her teeth and began to pull back, but it caught against the neckline of his T and she dropped it.

"Sorry, sir," she muttered, but he said nothing as she leaned in again and _shit_ if that damned flutter low in her belly wasn't fast becoming a knot to rival the ones that had put them in this predicament in the first place.

Sam lifted herself higher this time, hoping to get more purchase on the chain, but the awkwardness of her stance made her overbalance. For the first time since they'd found themselves in this position O'Neill brought his arms closer around her, stopping her sending them both sprawling by holding her tighter against him. She flicked out her tongue to secure the chain and pulled it back between her teeth just as she registered that she was close enough to feel his heart beating in his chest, and it was thumping hard, fast and _oh-_

O'Neill drew a sharp breath, loosening his hold and trying to pull back. "Carter," he muttered, and she knew he was about to attempt an apology because this time there was absolutely no way that either of them had a sidearm anywhere about their person and she had no intention of addressing the pressure she could feel against her hip.

She pulled, arching her back and craning her neck until his tags popped out the top of his shirt. "Sir, duck," she mumbled, around the chain still caught between her teeth.

He saw what she meant and dipped his head, bending his knees slightly as she rose on tiptoe again, trying to work the tag chain over his head. Her cheek brushed against his ear and she could feel his breath against her chest as his hair tickled her nose, but she didn't let go. The alternative was for them to have to look each other in the eye and right now that just wasn't something she wanted to contemplate, for either of their sakes.

She heard his muffled curse as the chain caught painfully against his left ear but a second later it was free, his dog tags hanging from the chain still held securely between her teeth. They met each other's eyes, just for a second, and his were dark – with anxiety, Sam surmised, and just possibly something else that she thought it best not to dwell on.

 _Let's just get out of here,_ she thought to herself. _Let's get out of here and never talk of this ever, ever again._

She went up on tiptoe again, this time hooking her chin over his shoulder, dangling the tags down his back. She couldn't see where she was aiming for, but raised her bound hands as high as she could. Sam shut her eyes for a second, sent out a brief plea to the universe at large, and let go.

There was a faint rustle as the tags slid down O'Neill's back. Sam felt them brush her hands and tried to grab at them, but to no avail.

A second later there was a small _chinking_ sound as they hit stone floor of their prison.

[TBC]


	3. Chapter 3

Jack heard his dog tags hit the floor at about the same time as Carter's mumbled curse reverberated from her softer-than-he-ever-EVER-needed-empirical-evidence-of lips and straight into the skin just beneath his ear. A second later she slid back to the floor, which reminded him, as if he could possibly need any form of memory prompt whatsoever, that they really were locked in extremely close proximity.

"Captain," he said, voice even rougher than the morning after that night when he'd tried to gauge Teal'c's capacity for healing using the craft beer he bought by the crate from Boulder. "Please don't tell me that sound means what I think it means."

"I'm sorry, sir," she said. "I'm so sorry. I just couldn't catch them."

She turned them slightly, and together they looked down at the rough stone floor, contemplating the small tangle of USAF-issue jewellery currently nestling amid a knot of alien straw at their feet. Then they looked at each other, and both of them knew what had to come next. Jack's gaze strayed to Carter's neck, at the silver links resting there against her pale skin, and despite the abject risk of humiliation and the distinct possibility that he could be had up on charges for sexual conduct violations, there were bits of him that were definitely not behaving as chastely as they should at the thought of where he was about to put his mouth.

Oh, this was _not_ happening. She was a junior officer under his command, a _bona fide_ scientific genius, an extremely competent soldier whom he was lucky to have on his team, not to mention she was fast becoming a friend for whom he had huge quantities of respect. There was no way in hell Jack O'Neill was going to jeopardise their working relationship just because his body couldn't help reminding him that he hadn't had any in quite a while or that, however hard he tried to pretend it was by-the-by, Sam Carter just happened to be one of the most stunningly beautiful women he'd ever seen.

 _Crap._

 _Crap._

 _Triple crap._

 _Get a grip, O'Neill. What are you, thirteen?_

"Okay," he muttered, as much to himself as to her. "Let's just… take a minute here, all right?"

"Sir, maybe there's another way."

He took a silent breath. "Don't keep me in suspense, Carter. I'm all ears."

"I might be able to reach your tags if we sit down."

"Okay..."

"Just might prevent a repeat of the previous issue, sir."

He glanced at her, wondering to which previous issue she was referring, and hoped it was the dropping-of-the-tags thing and not the him-getting-an-embarrassing-man-problem-against-her-leg thing. He was a Colonel, for Christ's sake. Colonels should not get soft lobs when their junior officers were relying on them. The thought of the violation of trust that implied was enough of a metaphorical cold shower to douse any inappropriate thought he could possibly have. Jack slapped himself around the face with it. _Be better_ , he ordered himself. _She deserves BETTER._

"Worth a try, Captain. Ready?"

"Yes, sir."

Together they knelt, knees to cold stone, face to warm face.

"Um - you're going to have to lean back, sir…"

It was at that precise moment that Jack realised this situation was quite possibly even worse than the one they'd been attempting to avoid. To help Carter get within touching distance of the damn tags, she was basically going to have to straddle him.

"Carter," he said. "Look, on second thoughts-"

It was at that precise moment that the door to their prison ground open, revealing the Codai who had put them in here, accompanied by Daniel Jackson.

"Hey Jack, Hey Sam…" Daniel said, blinking at them in the dim light. "Are we… interrupting?"

"Daniel!" O'Neill bellowed, jerking upright so quickly that he ended up with two armfuls of startled Carter against his chest. "Where in HELL have you been?"

"Um - trying to -"

"Actually, you know what? I don't care. Get us the hell out of here, Daniel, or I swear, the minute I'm free I am going to grab the nearest two Codai and use their intestines to tie them together nice and tight, just to see how they like it."

"Jack, calm down," Daniel said, glancing anxiously at the Codai beside him.

"I'm perfectly calm," Jack said, loudly, as he and Carter scrambled to their feet in a distinctly ungainly fashion. "Is there something about me that doesn't seem calm to you?"

"Many… many, things, Jack, and right now that's not such a great idea, so just-"

"Oh, it's not a great idea? Is that so? Well, let me tell you-"

"Sir," Carter pressed herself close enough to speak quietly into his ear. "I think perhaps it would be prudent to listen to Daniel. Where's Teal'c?"

Jack blinked. Carter was right. Of course she was. His anger was born of a frustration he didn't want to contemplate, not any immediate discomfort. He swallowed his anger and checked his tone.

"Tell me what's going on, Daniel. Quickly. Where's Teal'c?"

"He's safe. He's just retrieving our weapons now. The Codai wanted a chance to interrogate him about his time with the Goa'uld."

Jack felt his eyebrows shoot up. "'Interrogate'?"

Daniel raised his hands. "Teal'c consented. It was all… very civilised. They are now satisfied that he is an ally against the system lords, rather than a servant of them."

"Oh, well that's just great. Good to hear. Wonderful." He raised his bound wrists. "And what about this?"

Daniel grimaced, evidently uncomfortable. "Well, that was also kind of a test. Apparently."

"A test of what?"

"Integrity, I think."

"Integrity?" Sam asked, her voice incredulous. "In what way?"

"I, uh… explained the notion of our command structure to the Codai and they thought this was an appropriate way to… see it in action. To see, I think, how a superior and a junior officer would interact when put in… a situation like this. It is not dissimilar to trials their own people go through before taking what constitutes high office for them. They are put into adverse situations as a way to gauge their suitability and to see how they behave towards each other. "

Jack stared over Sam's head as she turned her face away. "And?" he asked. "Did we pass, or what?"

The Codai stepped forward, wielding a knife. He said nothing, but slipped it under the rope that bound O'Neill's hands. Jack felt Sam shift against him.

"Apparently so," Daniel offered.

"You and your team have behaved admirably, Colonel O'Neill," said the Codai, as Jack's wrists sprang free. "And as a result, we of the Codai believe that your people and ours can indeed enter a fruitful alliance."

"Yeah?" Jack said, slipping out of Carter's arms and retrieving the knife from the Codai before reaching for her bonds. "Well that's just swell, but you know what? I don't think you have anything we want."

"Jack-"

"Stow it, Daniel," he said, as he cut through the rope on Carter's wrists. "Get Teal'c, get to the gate and start dialling. That's a damn order." The rope slipped from Carter's hands. Jack looked down and touched his fingers to her wrists, where an angry red line had chafed itself into her skin. "You OK?"

"I'm fine."

"Then let's go. Now."

[TBC]


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Thanks to all who have read this, and even more thanks to those who left kind comments.

* * *

Sam followed the Colonel out of the cabin. Outside, Teal'c was waiting with their weapons.

"It is good to see you again, O'Neill."

"The feeling's mutual, Teal'c," said O'Neill. He took his P90 but barely paused, striding after Daniel, who was heading for the stargate at the other end of the small town. He turned to shout back. "Come on, people. Move it. And keep those weapons ready."

The Corai eddied around SG-1 as the team made for the gate. Sam felt no threat from them, but it was clear that the Colonel had zero intention of giving them a second chance. By the time she and Teal'c reached the DHD Daniel had already input Earth's gate address and dialled.

"It is my sincere hope that you will reconsider and return soon, Colonel," the Corai leader said to O'Neill as behind him, the blue kawoosh obliterated the planet's quiet.

"Don't bet on it," O'Neill growled. "Carter, let 'em know we're coming and let's get out of here."

Sam keyed in SG-1's access code and a minute later, they left the Corai's world behind.

Hammond's voice boomed at them from the control room the moment they were all back through the gate. "SG-1. We didn't expect you back so soon. Problems?"

"You could say that, General."

"All right. Debrief in 30 minutes."

O'Neill turned to her, his nodding at her wrists. "Get those rope burns checked out, Captain. Then I need a word."

Sam frowned. "Before the briefing, sir?"

"Yes, before the briefing. I'll be up there in twenty. Make sure you are too."

With that he turned and stalked away, the heavy tread of his boots clanging loudly on the gate ramp.

"Sam," Daniel said. "Is it just me, or does Jack seem disproportionately angry about what happened back there?"

It wasn't anything she hadn't been thinking herself, as a matter of fact – O'Neill was as furious as she'd ever seen him – but she felt an urge to defend him nevertheless. "I don't know, Daniel, what would be _proportionate_ , to you?"

Daniel raised his eyebrows at the spike in her tone. "I don't know Sam, but walking away from a potentially valuable source of information about the Goa'uld because they put him in a cell for half an hour doesn't seem to be it."

"He didn't know it was only going to be half an hour, Daniel. All he knew was that we'd been separated from you and Teal'c and had no weapons. Anything could have happened."

"But it _didn't_ ," Daniel said, slowly. "So I still don't understand why he's so angry. Unless… it doesn't actually have anything to do with the Corai at all."

Something turned over in her chest. "I don't know what you mean."

"Sam – did something else happen in there?"

"What are you talking about?" she asked. "You saw us, we were tied up like cartoon villains, what exactly do you think could have happened?"

"I… don't know…" But there was a slowly dawning look of realisation in her friend's eyes that Sam really wished she couldn't read.

"I've got to go," she said. "You'd better be prepared for this briefing, Daniel, because if you want to go back to the Corai you're going to need a pretty good argument for why it'd be worth the trip."

Sam walked away, her heart pounding and a sick feeling churning in her stomach. She had no idea what the Colonel wanted to see her about, but she had a hunch it was nothing good. Sam rubbed a hand over her face, a ripple of fear joining the nausea. She loved SG-1. She'd experienced more in a year than most people got to see in a lifetime, and much of that had to do with the team, and she never wanted anything to jeopardise her part in it.

Fifteen minutes later, the marks on her wrists liberally slathered with antiseptic cream, Sam knocked at the briefing room door. At O'Neill's 'Come', she walked in to find him standing stiffly beside his usual chair at the table. He nodded at her.

"Captain."

"Sir."

O'Neill gestured. "Take a seat, Carter."

Sam did as she was told, sitting opposite him as her anxiety increased by the second. The Colonel sat, taking a breath.

"I thought we should talk," he began, quietly. "About what happened back there."

Sam's heart almost stopped in her chest. "Okay, Colonel. Although… I'm not sure I understand what it is you want to talk about… sir."

He grimaced slightly. "Come on, Carter. You know what I'm talking about."

Sam felt her cheeks threatening to flush for a second time that day. "Sir…"

"Look," O'Neill said, holding up a hand. "I'm not trying to make this more awkward for you than it already is, Captain. I just want to make it clear that if you decide to make a formal complaint of misconduct to Hammond, you have my full support."

Sam opened her mouth, but was too stunned to form a proper sentence. "I – _what_?"

He didn't meet her eye, dropping his fingers to the sheaf of paper in front of him instead. She realised it was a copy of the USAF's interpersonal conduct guidelines.

"My behaviour on the Corai planet was reprehensible, Carter," O'Neill said, tightly. "It didn't come close to meeting the guidelines, let alone the conduct I expect from myself as your commanding officer. I would completely understand if you feel formal censure is required."

"I – _sir_ – I don't-"

"The air force takes incidents like this extremely seriously, Captain," he went on. "And at the SGC it's of paramount importance. Every time we go through the gate we could be landing in a warzone. We have to be able to rely on each other, no matter what, and if you're spending more time worrying about whether I-"

" _Sir_ ," she said, loudly, cutting him off. When he looked at her, she said, "Colonel, what exactly do _you_ think happened out there?"

He dropped her gaze. "A case of clear misconduct according to-"

"Sir, it wasn't-" she stopped, aware that she'd just interrupted her superior officer for the second time in as many minutes. She bit her lip, her mind whirring. _It wasn't just you_ , she thought. _It wasn't just you._ "Colonel. Permission to speak freely?"

He nodded. "Go ahead, Captain."

"Sir, what happened back there was _not_ misconduct. Believe me, I've been in plenty of situations with plenty of servicemen where misconduct was the clear intent of the interaction," – at this she saw his mouth tighten into an even firmer line – "and I can tell the difference."

"Carter, as your commanding officer-"

" _Sir_."

He stopped, and they looked at each other for a moment.

"Sir," Sam said again, more quietly. "Rank can't legislate against everything. Biology, for example."

O'Neill lifted an eyebrow at that. "Biology?'

Sam looked down at her hands, taking a breath. "Colonel, we are both adults, we both keep our bodies about as fit as it's possible for them to be, and we share the same sexual orientation. In the heightened stress of a situation like that… our bodies were just reacting the way biology intended. That's all. They were just… doing what they're supposed to do, biologically speaking. It wasn't misconduct, sir. If one or both of us had acted on it… _that_ would have pushed it over the line. But we didn't. We both know we wouldn't. And if you imagine that I would think even for a second about taking it to Hammond, if you think I would jeopardise my place on SG-1 or your command of this team, then Colonel - you don't know me at all."

"But that's the point, isn't it?" he pressed. "I would never want you to put up with inappropriate behaviour because you're worried about the consequences to your career. That would just be-" O'Neill shook his head, and when he spoke next his voice had softened. "Carter, what you mentioned a minute ago? What you've had to put up with before now? Idon't ever want to be one of those men."

"You never will be, sir. You never _could_ be. And there's no one I would prefer to serve with as my commander than you."

He smiled slightly. "I can't imagine SG-1 without you, Carter. I wouldn't want to."

"Thank you, sir. That means a lot."

A silence settled between them.

"So. Biology, huh?"

"Everything comes down to science in the end, sir."

He nodded. "Guess next time I'll just have to make sure I'm trussed up with Daniel or Teal'c."

Sam grinned.

"Speaking of whom," he added, "Teal'c's discovered the concept of rodeo. Danny and I are going to take him to one up in Wyoming this weekend, assuming the downtime sticks. You could join us, if you're free. They've got a load of those mechanical bucking broncos, too. Imagine that as a photo to send back to Bra'tac."

Sam's grin resolved itself into a warm smile. She could see the olive branch he was holding out for what it was. "Sounds like a lot of fun, sir. I'd love to come. Thanks for the invite."

Behind them, the door opened and Daniel stuck his head around the briefing room door. "Can we come in?"

"Oh, absolutely," O'Neill said, swinging around in his chair and spreading his arms. "I'm just dying to listen to all those brilliant arguments you have about why it's imperative we go back, Daniel. Can't wait. You've got me on tenderhooks, here."

Daniel cast a cautious glance between the two of them, apparently trying to gauge the mood. "Well, I'm glad to hear you say that, Jack," he said, as he and Teal'c moved to sit down, "because really, I think that-"

O'Neill turned back to the table as Daniel talked on. He flicked his gaze toward Sam and then he rolled his eyes, just slightly, just enough for her to catch the expression, which was clearly meant for her alone. She hid the smile she couldn't suppress and tried to ignore the way that little secret between them shivered all the way down through her chest and lodged itself in her gut.

 _It's not a problem_ , she told herself, as Hammond joined the briefing. _It's not._

 _It can't be._

[END]


End file.
